A meal is not over until desert has been had. That is a mantra I live by. I need something sweet to finish dinner. Lately, I have been on a baking kick making cookies and cinnamon buns.
Back in the fall I went on my first trip to pick some apples. As a Bermudian the only opportunity I have ever had to pick apples was the one apple that grew to be 2 inches in diameter in my father's garden. Even then I was forbidden to pick it with the hopes it would get bigger. Alas, I guess Bermuda weather/soil is not the ideal for apple growing so I approached the apple picking with gusto. By the time I was done I had a bag full of more apples than I could use. I went to cooking.
One of the things I decided to make were mini apple pies. Using a recipe from SmittenKitchen.com I cut large circles of dough and filled them with sliced apple that I had coated in brown sugar and cinnamon. Then using an egg wash I brushed the tops of the dough that folded around the sides and sprinkled with white sugar, slipping a tiny cut of butter into the apples to help them cook beautifully.
One of my favorite goodies as a child were the Austrian walnut horseshoe cookies my mother would make for us. As we rolled them out I would try and sneak the raw cookie dough without my mother seeing.
I can't share the recipe as it is a family secret but the main ingredients are butter and chopped walnuts.
Leading up to Valentines day I made cinnamon buns that were so rich and delicious I had to send them into the office with Paul so I would not eat them all. Despite his office being in a weight loss competition I think they enjoyed them.
One of my favorite food blogs is Smitten Kitchen and she made some Nutmeg Maple Butter Cookies (http://smittenkitchen.com/2011/12/nutmeg-maple-butter-cookies/). I used that recipe and a heart cookie cutter to make little hearts for Valentines Day. Then, because they were delicious but a little plain looking I made a simple sugar cookie icing that I MacGyvered some pink dye using Pomegranate Juice.
Icing sugar: 1 cup confectioners' sugar, 2 tsps milk, 2 tsps light corn syrup
Mix well and add food dye until it is at the consistency you want.
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